The Joy of Watching a Sachin Tendulkar Century

Watching cricket being played in New Zealand had always been demanding. Until the last tour of India, it had required lot of mental toughness, as India had always failed to conquer this part of the cricketing world. It also requires loss of sleep. Having worked non-stop for more than 10 days, my body badly wanted some rest. But my mind had other priorities. Before the start of this tour itself, I had believed that this Indian team is far better than the other Indian teams that visited this nice beautiful country on the eastern most part of the world. Even though the T20 games were a bit of a disappointment, the ODI's provided much needed relief and the icing on the cake was the winning of the series, the first ever by any Indian team.

But test cricket in the Kiwi country had always been a tough proposition. New Zealand had always great bowlers and some one or the other would turn up for the team every time. Richard Hadlee, Ivan Chatfield, Shane Bond, Danny Morrison, Shane Bond Darryl Tuffey had always proved nemesis to the visiting Indian team. Even the umpires had also contributed to a great extent to New Zealand's victories. But that was not the case in this tour. Having bundled the New Zealand batsmen under 300, Indian batsmen didn't have much of a threat from any of the New Zealand bowlers. Despite getting some good movement in the air, the New Zealand bowlers offered no threat to the in-form batsmen. What wouldn't fascinate a die-hard cricket fan than a good solid batting display and add to that a convincing Sachin Tendulkar Ton.

Sachin Tendulkar over the past few years had always played second fiddle to other players. He had been assigned the job of making other batsmen play around him. This was the role that Rahul Dravid had done splendidly throughout his cricketing career. Even if Tendulkar had scored a decent score, it was overshadowed by some other batsman's charismatic batting. Be it the century he scored against Australia at Sydney and Adelaide or the one he got in Nagpur, there were other things in the match that subdued Sachin's innings. 

But in this innings of Sachin, we could see the vintage Sachin who would destroy the opposition bowlers. The best of the shots was the backfoot punch in the region between point and cover. It is not an easy shot to play, considering the bounce of the wicket and Sachin's small stature. Make small mistake, the ball would loop in the air, offering an easy chance for the fielders in the slip or at point. But that was not the case when Tendulkar plays it  with so much of authority. Other than the life he was provided when being at 15, it was a blemishless innings, with an air of authority and class. 

If he had  rotated the strike, gave more strike to the likes of Sehwag, Yuvraj, Dhoni et al in the ODIs, he held his innings beautifully and forced Yuvi and Dhoni to rotate the strike. After a long time, Sachin had played the innings to his terms, instead of the guy at the other end. 

Despite having worked for more than 12 hours for 10 consecutive days, I just couldn't resist the desire of watching Tendulkar's innings even if it required to lose some sleep and get up at 3 in the early morning. The joy of watching of a Sachin Tendulkar's century is just uncomparable. I can atleast proudly say that I had been a witness to each run that Sachin scored to reach his 42nd Test Ton.

Cricket's Blackest Day

Until recently, I had held the Trevor Chappel's infamous under-arm bowling to New Zealand as the blackest day for Cricket. It involved only Cricketers. Cricket has suffered a lot, Starting the Kerry Packer's rebel Australian Cricket, South Africa alienated from International Cricket for practising apartheid, non-Asian cricketing teams declining to visit Sri Lanka in the 1996 world cup, Pakistan unable to host any series due to the American war in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan not touring each other for more than a decade, due to cross-border terrorism and the list goes on. 

Only very recently, did Pakistan began to host visiting cricketing teams despite the New Zealand cricket team, narrowly escaped a deadly bomb blast in the hotel in which they had stayed. England had to abandon the Indian One Day International series, due to the terrorist attack in Mumbai and even the Champions League Trophy was also abandoned due to the attack. But, never had the cricketers been in the direct line of fire. Never had they been attacked or victimised, until today, when terrorists began opening fire on the Sri Lankan cricket team.

India should have toured Pakistan, earlier this year. But for the Mumbai terrorist attacks, even the central Government, without assessing the security arrangements would have given a go ahead for the Pakistan tour. Let us not forget, the Indian Cricket team, had just been to Pakistan to play the ICC Asia Cup tournament.

Cricketers are better prepared to face deadly beemars from fast bowlers, but certainly not the bullets from a terrorists guns. After all, what do the terrorists want is nobody's guess. When a country like India had declined to tour on security grounds (this is the official reason given, if not this is the real reason), what is the compulsion for Sri Lanka to arrange for a tour in the last moment? The claim by the Sri Lankan Cricket board is that the board stands to gain 10 million USD with this tour. Aren't the lives of the cricketers more precious? 

With this dastardly act of terror, Pakistan stands to lose a long way. The ICC champions trophy, which was supposed to have been held in 2008 was postponed to 2009. But now, it wouldn't be held in Pakistan. No Cricketing team would Pakistan until today's incidents remain in their minds. Pakistan is a co-host of the 2011 World Cup. The ICC has already begun considering Pakistan to be a venue of a few matches. If other cricket teams decline to visit Pakistan, then Pakistan Cricket team has to choose neutral venues like Sharjah (though I differ from the fact that this is a neutral venue for Pakistan) to play its future series. This not only means that there is a loss of revenue for the already ailing Pakistan Cricket board, but it has to spend a lot in organising the cricket matches in venues like Sharjah. Until then, let us hope, let there be no more terrorist attach in any part of the world on anybody.

Let us pray for the speedy recovery for the cricketers who have been injured. Let the souls of those brave policemen, who gave up their lives in their mission of saving the cricketers rest in peace. Let God give their families strength to recoup from this irrecoverable loss.